Life After the Rapture

The Booklover’s Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Tom Perotta’s newest book is not a typical choice for me. I saw the movie Little Children starring Kate Winslet, so I was curious when this book came out. The fact that life after The Rapture was central to the story made me that much more curious. I was not disappointed.

In The Leftovers, Tom Perotta explores what would happen if The Rapture actually took place. The book opens just a short time after millions of people have just disappeared from the earth. Perotta’s characters show a variety of emotions, including indifference, avoidance, and depression. Two of the main characters even join strange cults that spring up after The Rapture.

Perotta’s novel is ordinary in the sense that Justin Cronin’s novel The Passage is extraordinary. Both follow apocalyptic events, yet the way life goes on after the events in the two novels could not be more different. Perotta leaves the reader feeling that even after an apocalyptic event, life would go on in a strangely normal fashion. That left me pondering the story long after it was over.